Wednesday 26 December 2007

"After 12 years of existence and 39 records produced, the seminal Montréal new music label Ambiances Magnétiques felt the need to release its first compilation album, La Bastringue Migratoire. This retrospective CD came out as the label’s main artists (René Lussier, Jean Derome, Joane Hétu and Martin Tétreault, mostly) were about to change their musical approach. After 1996, the bulk of the label’s production will shift from deconstructed rock idioms where humor often plays a central role (Les Granules, Justine, André Duchesne, Jerry Snell) to introverted free improvisation. So La Bastringue Migratoire came at the right time, summarizing the label’s pre-1996 sound. All tracks are taken from albums already published — no unreleased material — and thus this CD offers nothing new to the dedicated fan, but the “musique actuelle” neophyte will find it a helpful sampler. Every major act on the label is represented: René Lussier (thrice if one counts the track by his duo Les Granules), Jean Derome, Martin Tétreault, Justine, Évidence, Bruire and André Duchesne, plus a few lesser-known artists such as Geneviève Letarte and Jerry Snell.François Couture, All-Music Guide.

"The compilation disc La Bastringue Migratoire makes for a good initiation to the Ambiances Magnétiques label. About a dozen artists are represented here and, though hard to classify, their music is essentially tropes on a basic theme of "art jazz". Some approaches are fairly conventional, like Evidence’s interpretation of Thelonious Monk’s Criss Cross, while others, such as Robert Lepage’s comic-strip-inspired clarinet ditty Le Sourire de la Joconde, are admittedly bizarre. Some tracks are gentle, as in Michel Côté and Diane Labrosse’s Y tu Mirar, while others are brash, like Jerry Snell’s Life in the Suicide Riots. Musical influences present on the disc range from DJ culture in Martin Tétreault’s work, to rock in André Duchesne, to folk music of various cultures sort of sprinkled throughout all the pieces. Poetry is present in the many of the tracks but is particularly central to Genevieve Letarte’s La Ragazza. My favorite work is Les Granules’ Le Tango Qui Ne Finit Jamais -- it combines kitsch with music-craft in a way that is at once sinister and charming. If you haven’t had the pleasure of aurally ogling anything from Ambiances Magnétiques, I strongly recommend La Bastringue Migratoire.

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